Rasmussen: Hillary More Qualified to Be President

U.S. voters think Hillary Clinton is more qualified to be president than Barack Obama, but most believe that both Democrats are more fit for the White House than three top Republicans interested in the job.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 57 percent of voters feel Clinton is qualified to be president, but 34 percent disagree and say she is not.

As for Obama, 51 percent say he is fit for the job, according to the June 17-18 survey of 1,000 likely U.S. voters. However, 44 percent say he is not qualified to be president, even though he has served 17 months in the job.

Nearly as many (49 percent) say former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, an unsuccessful candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, is qualified to be president of the United States. Almost one-third say Romney is not qualified, but another 20 percent are not sure.

Just 35 percent of voters say former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is qualified to be the nation’s chief executive. Nearly half say Gingrich is not fit for the office, while 17 percent are undecided.

As for Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, 26 percent feel she is qualified to be president, while 61 percent do not, and 13 percent are not sure.

The partisan differences are predictable. Two-thirds of GOP voters rate Romney as qualified to be president, followed by 53 percent who say the same of Gingrich. Republican voters are evenly divided over whether Palin is fit to be president. But they view all three Republicans as more qualified than Clinton or Obama.

Nearly 80 percent of Democrats, on the other hand, view Obama and Clinton as qualified, but they overwhelmingly believe that Gingrich and Palin are not. Democrats are more closely divided over Romney’s qualifications.

Perhaps most telling are the responses of voters not affiliated with either major party. Just over 60 percent say Clinton is qualified for the White House, and 48 percent say the same of Obama and Romney. Gingrich is a close call for unaffiliateds, but by better than 2-to-1, they say Palin is not fit to be president.

Almost 65 percent of all voters say it is at least somewhat likely that the next president will be a Republican, with 40 percent who say it is very likely. But it’s important to note that the question does not say whether this president will be elected in 2012 or 2016.

Almost 60 percent have a favorable opinion of Clinton, while 41 percent view her unfavorably.

Late last October, 27 percent of voters said Clinton would be doing a better job as president if she had been elected instead of Obama, while 14 percent said she would be doing worse, and 49 percent said the two would be performing about the same.

Almost three-fourths of Republican voters continue to believe that GOP members of Congress have lost touch with the party base throughout the nation over the past several years. By contrast, 61 percent of Democratic voters think their representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing Democratic values over the past several years.

Almost 60 percent of GOP voters believe Palin shares the values of most GOP voters throughout the nation.

Romney consistently has run stronger than Gingrich and Palin among both Republicans and voters in general in surveys over the past year.